*
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Far Eastern Department
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1
JEC Macrae Esq
UKMIS NEW YORK
Telephone 01-
Your reference
Our reference
Date
Pee
сору
this (and
its enclave) plus CR and @
to Chy Peking
6 February 1974
11/2
LAST
REF.
NEXI
REF.
دوں
19
HONG KONG AND THE UNITED NATIONS
1.
Thank you for your letter of 4/6/3 of 23 January which I am now copying to Hong Kong. I am sorry that you have not yet had a substantive reply to your telegram no. 99 Saving of 8 October. I am afraid that consideration of this became bogged down during our preparations for the Prime Minister's intended visit to China. All the Departments here have now had a chance to consider the question.
2. In view of the Chinese position as recorded in your letter of 23 January we are content, subject to Hong Kong's views, to accept the heading "country or region". We should be grateful therefore if you would so inform the Secretariat; before you act however we should be grateful if George in Hong Kong could confirm that he has no objection. There seems to be no point in pressing, against Chinese opposition, for the use of "territory" although this is our preferred term and one which we have favoured when the issue has arisen elsewhere; in any case you explained in your Saving tel under reference that it would be difficult to achieve uniformity in all UN documents. The Department's Legal Adviser does not believe that the omission of the expression "Government of Hong Kong" from UN Documents and its replacement by another heading (even if not ideal from our point of view) has any legal dangers. Our agreement on this point, could not be held to prejudice our right, in administering the Colony of Hong Kong, to continue to maintain a government of the Colony or otherwise to weaken our claim to sovereignty or other rights over Hong Kong. It is the concession in regard to the separate listing of our Dependent Territories among states members of the UN in which we see some legal risk or at least a possibility of embarrassment in the context of invitation or direct communications. Subject to your agreement therefore and that of George in Hong Kong, we think that it would be useful to send a letter on the lines of the enclosed draft to the Secretary General, in order to safeguard our general position vis-à-vis all our Dependent Territories. Whatever the specific origins
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